PHOENIX (AP) — Arizona Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, the independent Democratic defector who has been criticized for being too closely aligned with Wall Street interests, earned credit Thursday for helping broker legislation that would would be aimed at executives of failed banks.
Sinema, who has not said if she is seeking a second term in 2024, cited the bill, passed this week by the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and City Affairs, as an example of the bipartisan agreement she says is often lacking in Congress .
Her unwavering support for negotiations across the aisle sparked her divorce from the Democratic Party last year and complicates her potential re-election path in one of the most watched Senate campaigns.
Sinema described to The Associated Press her role in brokering a settlement between committee chair Senator Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, and top Republican Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina.
“My job was to help them understand the differences between them and find some of those similarities,” Sinema said.
Spokespersons for Brown and Scott said they worked with Sinema and other committee members to implement their ideas.
The move comes in response to the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank earlier this year, the second largest bank failure in US history, followed by the demise of Signature Bank and First Republic Bank.
The Senate bill would make it easier for regulators to reclaim executive pay from insolvent banks. Sinema said she is pushing to include a provision requiring the Federal Reserve to report on efforts to improve banking regulation.
Following the collapse of the Silicon Valley bank, Sinema responded by backing a 2018 bill that relaxed requirements for “stress testing” banks with assets ranging from $100 billion to $250 billion, including Silicon Valley. The Fed blamed the collapse on poor management, weakened regulations, and lax oversight by its own staff.
Sinema said her support for expanding regulators’ powers was not a response to the pressure being put on her. Critics, she said, “do not serve on the appropriate committees, do not understand the issues, and are not involved in the day-to-day work that ensures that we have a healthy and strong economic and financial system in our country.”
She said that even after the rollback, the Fed has the power to regulate banks appropriately and that the central bank had signs that Silicon Valley was in trouble but had not acted with urgency.
“The mistake they made in the past was to act at the speed of the old business and not the speed of the new business,” she said.
Sinema, known for keeping her contacts with reporters to a minimum, has stepped up her engagement with the media this year as she ponders her political future. She is raising money for a possible re-election campaign but has not announced if she will run as she is focused on her work in Congress.
She would find herself in a challenging and unpredictable three-way race.
US Rep. Ruben Gallego, a Navy veteran and film critic, is the only major Democrat in the Senate race. Pinal County Sheriff Mark Lamb is the only major Republican nominee, although former TV host Kari Lake is considering running.
Arizona will play an important role in Democrats’ bid to retain their narrow Senate majority as the overall election map favors Republicans in 2024.
Sinema has also been mentioned as a possible candidate for a bipartisan “one-size-fits-all” White House ticket being considered by No Labels, a group seeking ballot access in multiple states to field an alternative candidate “if the two parties select unduly divisive presidential candidates”.
Sinema rejected the idea on Thursday.
“I’m not running for president,” she said.